Q & A with Aleksei Kabarukhin, Lead Systems Engineer at Digital IQ, for TechTimes media.
- Aleksei, you are a Lead Systems Engineer. How would you describe your position?
"The best way to describe my profession is to decode it word by word. As an engineer, I provide expertise in information technology and computer sciences. Systems regards the wide range of IT systems that require management and maintenance, from infrastructure development (including its full description as a code) to presenting and transferring a turnkey to a client. The prefix lead refers to my leadership position-as the lead engineer, I make independent decisions and handle a high level of responsibility.
So, as a Lead Systems Engineer, I possess extensive knowledge of IT infrastructure creation, application automatization, and software configuration. I also deal with more specific operations, such as OS-level virtualization and CI/CD pipeline creation. Each of these responsibilities requires expertise and continuous training. Luckily, specialists with my qualifications are in high demand within the IT industry."
- Describe your expertise. How does one become a Lead Systems Engineer?
"First, you should be able to manage operating systems, storage systems, and networks. Plus, implement infrastructure deployment, and develop automatization and software configuration.
My critical skills are building, running, and managing container orchestration systems. Large enterprises need to store hundreds of thousands of Docker containers. Containers give microservice-based apps the ideal deployment unit and execution environment. Container orchestration refers to the tools and platforms used to automate and manage these containers. Container orchestrators, such as Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform, help automate and manage tasks-including provisioning, deployment, configuration, scheduling, load balancing, traffic routing, and securing interactions between containers.
A pod, one or more consolidated containers, is the smallest unit in container orchestration systems. There is an application inside each container. The container orchestration system allows us to scale applications through increasing and decreasing waves of requests. For example, a website load dramatically increases right before Black Friday. Container orchestration supports the system and helps to process the increased workload by automatically launching the required number of additional pods needed. The moment the load subsides, the container orchestration system will automatically stop unnecessary container activity, therefore efficiently using the resources of the IT infrastructure."
- Why is building CI/CD pipelines beneficial?
Another point of a systems engineer's expertise is building CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery) pipelines. It is a major solution to the various problems that integrating new code can cause development and operation teams. We refer to this point as 'integration hell'!
Imagine a developer and a code fragment they have written. Before submitting code to a repository, it must be checked for syntax and security. A new application version of the code should be assembled from the source. The application must be thoroughly tested and delivered to a production environment, thereby replacing the old version.
CI is successful when a new code is regularly built onto, tested, and merged with the code repository. The final purpose of CD is to automate the delivery of new application versions to the tests and production environment. If well-performed, CI/CD processes help us release several versions of applications every day. Without it, larger legacy applications can only be released once a year!"
- How did you begin your career?
"I entered the field about eight years ago, during my final year of studying at University. I was writing my graduation paper when I received an internship offer.
I received my first job offer as a database administrator at DataBase Intelligence (DBI), an international IT company. Once I was trained, I received complete access to our customers' IT systems. I was dedicated and felt that the customers were very appreciative of my work."
- How has your career developed over time?
"I am happy to list several great brands and businesses I've worked with throughout my career. Each has significantly contributed to my expertise and qualification.
I started my career at DBI-a company that specializes in implementing, customizing, and remotely maintaining databases, applications, and operating systems from leading vendors worldwide. I worked as a technical specialist on a collaborative project with Biogen Inc., and was responsible for migrating and upgrading to new versions of more than 400 databases-from Intel Servers to Oracle Exadata Machines. My contribution helped migrating databases significantly improve in performance.
I was invited to become a database administrator at CyberPlat, a multibank Internet payment system in Russia and CIS. There, I began developing DevOps skills. While at CyberPlat, I was offered the position of Senior Engineer at Raiffeisenbank, one of Russia's most reliable banks. I implemented a solution that reduced the time of delivering ready-to-use databases to clients from an average of 20-30 days to less than 60 minutes!
While at Raiffeisenbank, I acquired a lot of DevOps expertise-through the Red Hat certification and a project I led, where we placed high-availability fault tolerance databases in Kubernetes clusters. I was ready to enter my next role as a DevOps engineer.
My next position was Nexign, a member of ICS Holding, and one of the major suppliers of BSS solutions for telecom operators in over 17 countries. We collaborated with giants such as MegaFon, Rostelecom, Tele2, Uztelecom, Yota, and Ucell. After half a year, I was promoted to Senior DevOps Engineer. We created thousands of virtual machines, and I was able to improve virtual machine provisioning up to 40% faster. I also implemented several new versions of the Kubernetes cluster templates. Additionally, I performed an application migration from OpenShift to OKD to optimize license costs.
Now, I am with Digital IQ Inc., a full-service technology solutions provider based in the United States. Our cutting-edge strategies and systems architecture enable businesses to modernize their digital services. Using the latest technological advances in Cloud Transformation, DevOps, and CI/CD automation, our company delivers innovative and integrative information technology solutions to our clients-including Walmart, Verizon, Discover, and Princeton University. My duties encompass designing, implementing, and managing enterprise-level systems, including Private and Public Cloud Environments (PaaS, SaaS, IaaS), and DevOps automation. As a Lead Systems Engineer, I directly help American and global companies upgrade their infrastructure and manage their inner processes."
- Have you found it hard to settle into an American company?
I have worked with Agile methodology since I started my career. Process and people management, task scheduling, and software development are based in Agile. It allows teams to deliver their values quickly and directly to a client. Agile was initially developed in American IT companies. I found it easier to adapt to my position in the U.S. because the leading methodologies seemed familiar."
- You have certifications from Red Hat, Amazon, and Kubernetes. How do these impact your career potential?
"While preparing for a certification, you gain another level of expertise. Certification is an excellent tool for self-testing. It gauges your knowledge about a particular product or system.
To obtain a certificate, you must pass an exam that evaluates your knowledge level. While Amazon Web Services' exams mainly consist of theoretical questions, Red Hat's and Cloud Native Computing Foundation's exams are more so focused on practice. To pass, you must install a software product or solve a specific problem. Though certificates are important, practical experience is what matters most."
- What qualifications are you planning to develop to remain an expert in your field?
"The American audience is accustomed to using cloud providers while simultaneously developing IT infrastructures. This is why I deal with Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud separately from Amazon Web Services.
It seems important to gain experience in building multi-hybrid infrastructures in different clouds, creating and implementing a 'cloud agnostic' platform. It offers the freedom to choose the best cloud provider or SaaS service for each application.
I aspire to become a Lead Systems Architect. In this position, I would love to use my management skills on an equal basis as my technical skills.
Being an architect requires close communication with both the customer base and the business department. I have not yet had executive experience, but I am looking forward to the opportunity of gaining it.
- Which trends do you believe will help advance the future of IT?
"As I mentioned, building 'cloud-agnostic' systems, as well as hybrid and multi-hybrid clouds. These systems involve distributing your computing resources to a data center and a cloud provider.
Another is serverless computing. Once deployed, serverless apps respond to demands automatically. It is a cloud-native development model that allows developers to build and run applications without the obligation to manage servers. It lets developers focus on writing front-end application code and business logic, because the cloud provider is handling the routine work, like provisioning, maintaining, and scaling the server infrastructure.
Finally, implementing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning has undoubtedly beneficial. These technologies can solve problems from both sides-the customer and the user-due to efficient and accurate data processing and assembling."
- What advice would you give to those beginning a career in IT?
"Create a plan and stick to it. Without a clear goal, I wouldn't have been able to be invited to one of the leading U.S. IT companies.
Discipline and consistency are vital, as well. I try to allocate 2-4 hours a day to improve my skills outside of working hours. If you only practice self-development on weekends, you're wasting time-every single day matters."
